The storm prompted President Trump to declare states of emergency for Florida, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands, as well as Georgia and South Carolina. Trump is expected to visit Florida on Wednesday.

Caribbean islands experienced widespread damage, with the premier of the British Virgin Islands describing the scene as being like a bomb went off.

At least 37 fatalities were reported across the Caribbean as of Monday, with deaths in St. Martin, Sint Maarten, Barbuda, Puerto Rico, Haiti, the US and British Virgin Islands, Barbados, and Anguilla. Eighteen deaths in Florida have been blamed on Irma. Officials also confirmed at least two storm-related deaths in Georgia, and four in South Carolina.

President Trump made a series of misstatements about recent hurricanes Thursday, while also revealing that prior to Irma he was unaware of the existence of Category 5 storms.

Trump made the comments at a White House state dinner, claiming that Irma "hit the [Florida] Keys with a, it was a Category 5." The hurricane was actually a Category 4 storm when it made landfall in the Keys.

Trump added that he hadn't previously known about the most severe hurricane classification.

"I never even knew a Category 5 existed," he said.

In regard to Hurricane Harvey, Trump said Texas was swamped "with the largest amount of water anybody has ever seen." And of Irma, he claimed Florida "got hit with the strongest winds ever recorded."

Irma also did not have "the strongest winds ever recorded." Instead, the strongest non-tornado winds occurred in 1996 when Tropical Cyclone Olivia reached Australia and gusted to 253 mph, according to the UN's meteorological agency.

Hurricane Allen, in 1980, holds the title for the strongest Atlantic hurricane on record with maximum sustained winds reaching 190 mph, before making landfall in Texas.

By contrast, Irma's peak sustained maximum winds speed reached 185 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center, but had weakened to 130 mph when it made landfall in the Florida Keys.

Aside from his comments on the storms, Trump praised first responders, saying they did an "A plus job" in Florida.

President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump touched down at Fort Myers Thursday morning, thanking first responders and government officials for their work that led to only "such a small number" of people dying.

"To think of the incredible power of that storm, and while people unfortunately passed, it was such a small number," Trump said.

Eighteen deaths in Florida have been blamed on Irma — including eight people who died after the storm knocked power out at a nursing home.

The president also praised Rick Scott, saying the job the Florida governor has done "is being talked about all over." Right after shaking Florida Sen. Marco Rubio's hand, Trump said he hopes Scott runs for Senate when his second term as governor ends in 2019.

Trump will tour the areas devastated by Irma, receive a briefing on relief efforts, and meet with people affected by the damage during his visit.

"We are going to tour the areas and see some of the folks and make sure they're happy because we're trying to keep them as happy as we can under the circumstances," Trump said. "In many cases they lost their homes and it's a tough situation."

KEY WEST, Florida — Despite having no cold beer or whiskey for sale, Key West's iconic Green Parrot Bar is bumping post-hurricane. And that's because it's got one of the most precious supplies in town: a working phone.

Five hundred locals lined up outside The Green Parrot to use one of the town's handful of landlines, placing calls to worried mothers, kids, and fellow neighbors who'd evacuated before Hurricane Irma hit.

"Hey ma, it's Joe. It's OK, we're doing good, everything's fine," Joe Hayes, 66, told his mother, after finally getting through on the bar's phone, standing outside in the street to call. A few days earlier he'd left a voicemail for his “lovely 94-year-old mother, who is unfortunately still thriving,” letting her know he'd made it through the storm unscathed, but he wasn't sure if she'd heard it. This time, he got through.

IMMOKALEE, Florida — Despite the 90-degree heat beating down on Southwest Florida Wednesday, more than 400 people were at a tomato packaging plant waiting for five-gallon buckets filled with water, personal hygiene items, and other basic necessities they still lack, three days after Hurricane Irma tore through the region.

While most of Florida suffered the effects of the storm, few places were hit harder than Immokalee, an impoverished, largely Latino farming community of about 24,000 people in Collier County that's sometimes referred to as “Naples' stepbrother."

“Nobody looks out for the little guys,” said Julian Garcia, who grew up in the area. “There’s a hell of a lot of resentment here.”

The city, which has one of the highest poverty rates in the state, is about 75% Latino, with a large immigrant community made up in part of migrant farmworkers. And residents fear that they will be overlooked because of it.

This story of a man playing his sax in the middle of Irma's wreckage is what we all need

A few days after Hurricane Irma shredded the small Caribbean island of St. Thomas, Kendra Wagner and some friends took a drive along the mangled roads to take in the damage.

The 20-year-old college sophomore from Wisconsin had just started a semester study abroad program at the University of the Virgin Islands before Irma struck. The school, like most of the US territory, is now destroyed.

"I've never seen so much destruction in my life. It was hard to take it all in," Wagner told BuzzFeed News after she was evacuated to Puerto Rico, nearly a week after the hurricane bore down.

While driving through Tutu, which was especially decimated by the storm, Wagner was taking photos of the razed neighborhood when she noticed a man playing his saxophone in front of a blown-out apartment building. She was able to record the musician playing as others milled around the wreckage.

A house with its roof blown off by Hurricane Irma is shown in Summerland Key, in the Florida Keys.

The cost of preparing for and responding to Irma in Florida has already surpassed the final tally the state racked up over Hurricane Matthew last year, officials reported Wednesday.

State agencies across Florida reported spending more than $273.5 million on Irma preparations and recovery, more than the $268.5 million the state spent in total on Matthew in October. And officials say there's still a long and difficult road ahead post-Irma.

When insured losses are factored in, the damage Irma caused is expected to run well into the billions of dollars, especially as Florida grapples with the completely devastated Keys.

Meanwhile, the US Virgin Islands was still in humanitarian crisis mode, as remaining residents struggled to get access to basic food and water, fueling frustrations. By Wednesday, the Associated Press reported that the territory's governor, Kenneth Mapp, publicly denounced complaints about the pace of recovery, saying people had "unrealistic" expectations about how soon officials would be able to get full power and water restored.

Eight people died at a nursing home in Broward County after the building lost power and remained without air conditioning since Irma hit the area, the mayor said.

Broward County Mayor Barbara Sharief said residents at the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills woke up sick after being left without power. At least three died after being taken to a nearby hospital.

"The Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills has evacuated this morning de to a prolonged power failure to the transformer which powered the facility's air conditioning system as a result o the hurricane," Jorge Carballo, the facility's administrator, said in a statement. "Unfortunately, early this morning several patients experienced distress and there were 3 fatalities."

After becoming damaged during Hurricane Irma, the bridge between the tiny island community of Chokoloskee and the Florida mainland finally re-opened on Tuesday.

Supplies and help quickly began pouring into the close-knit community that is known for shunning outsiders but was devastated by the storm.

"The island is destroyed, 85% destroyed. I could cry," said Craig Daniels Jnr, a boat operator, whose family has lived on the island going back seven generations.

Daniels, along with most of his family, rode out the hurricane on the island, filming videos and taking photos as the winds got faster and the water rose, chronicling the destruction of his homeland.

The Cajun Navy arrived on Tuesday once the bridge opened, fresh off assisting Hurricane Harvey victims in Texas, cutting down trees obstructing roads and clearing debris. The Red Cross began distributing food and water.

If there's one thing everyone in Florida is desperate for after Hurricane Irma, it's power – and not of the political kind.

Floridians are desperate to run their air-conditioning units and recharge their cell phones. More than 4.3 million Floridians were still without power as of 9 p.m. Tuesday evening. Many streets do not have working traffic lights or street lights. Local Miami FM radio stations, such as 97.3, talk about how the "one thing" everyone wants is power.

At the peak of the storm, around 15 million Floridians lost power. In Miami-Dade county, 596,900 households, making up 52% of the county, were without power as of Tuesday night. But how is everyone surviving without being able to just plug something in?

Hialeah resident Al Sacerio, 63, finally used the generator he’d bought eight years earlier, for the very first time, after Irma caused him to lose power on Sunday.

“Yesterday, we broke it out of the box,” the Miami-Dade resident told BuzzFeed News.

But why has he owned a generator for nearly a decade that he has never been used? “That’s an item you’ve got to have in your house in Florida; like a refrigerator out the back,” he replied.